the use of air to air combat today

The F-14 Tomcats era came to it's end in 2006, drastically as the US Navy had a good 95% of the fleet destroyed instantly as so none would end up in the hands of the Iranians to be used on their aging Tomcat fleet.

But at a time when it didn't completely thrive the worlds waters was the time when the F-14 flew high, designed to protect carriers they could each carry AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, equipped with AWG-9 radar they could each track 24 targets from over 100 miles away and send engage six of those with AIM-54's from 100 miles away also.

The AIM-54 could reach Mach 3 in speed before hitting its target dead on, that target being a Russian MiG, supersonic bomber or even a cruise missile.

Even though the bombcat enabled the F-14 to drop bombs on ground targets it's air superiority weren't proven in 1991 against Iraq and in 2003 the Iraqi Air Force didn't put up much of a resistance, this being realized it was replaced by the F/A-18 Hornet, as the title suggests its a fighter and also an attack aircraft in one, which could carry a hefty amount of bombs to engage ground targets.



Meaning that yesterday's war is over and now today's war (taking on smaller nations with limited air power) make the F/A-18 Hornet more practical.



The French Exocet missile is lethal; as proved by the six of so Argentina possessed in the Falklands War, and to the crew of the USS Stark, (an Iraqi Mirage F-1 fired an Exocet at it killing 37 of the crew and crippling the ship in a matter of seconds).

The fighters-jets on the French carrier (the Charles de Gaulle) can all carry this meaning that no enemy destroyer or frigate will mess with them.

Now to the Russians, possessing only a single aircraft carrier in service (the Admiral Kuznetsov) they seem to depend more on defending rather than attacking, using neither the Su-27k or the Su-33 which has folding wings and six air to air missiles (and has the same role as the F-14 Tomcat had).



Boris Yeltsin' time in office really ruined the old Russian Navy, and Putin recently begun to commission new ships to be built and the Admiral Kuznetsov will soon be hitting the high seas reminiscent to the USS Enterprise in the 1970's, (except in an entirely defensive posture).